


Perchance to dream

by LostinFic



Series: Hardy x Hannah ficlets [12]
Category: Broadchurch, Secret Diary of a Call Girl (TV)
Genre: Crossover Pairings, F/M, Ficlet, Porn with Feelings, Post-Series, Teninch Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:52:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7184093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostinFic/pseuds/LostinFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: sharing a drink<br/>Two strangers meet in a bar, but because first encounters are always awkward, they decide to skip a few dates ahead. Soon, the line between fantasy and reality is blurred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perchance to dream

Hardy only entered the pub because of the pouring rain. No, that was not entirely true, but he would rather not dwell on that. He was relieved to see many people— anonymity in a crowd. Most were business types, it was hotel bar after all, he would not stand out in his suit and tie.

He sat at the counter, angled so he could look out the window, and ordered a pint of cider he intended to sip slowly. A few minutes after him, a woman walked in. A bit overdressed for the place, he reckoned, in a strapless dress. But it’s not her sexy clothes or shiny hair that made him stare, but the strength she seemed to possess from her shapely legs to the confidence with which she strolled into the place.

She caught him ogling, and rather than averting her eyes, she smiled and walked towards him. He looked around him, searching for someone waving her over. He gulped when she came to stand right next to him, feeling very much like the proverbial deer in the headlights.

“Hi!” She kissed his cheek. “I’m Belle.”  
“I’m, er, Hardy— Alec Hardy.”  
“Oh.” Her smile fell.  
He crossed his arms as a cringing embarrassment swept over him as it had with Becca. That was a new personal record for losing a woman. Perhaps she had heard of the the worst cop in Britain.  
“Sorry,” Belle said, scrunching up her nose. “I thought you were someone else.”  
“Don’t you know what he looks like?”  
“Er, well, it’s… it’s a blind date.”  
“Okay, right, yeah, no problem.”

She sat at the bar a few stools away from him. He returned to his pint and staring out the window. At least, the incident had nothing to do with who he was, just who he wasn’t. Still, for a fraction of a second, he had envisioned a night not spent alone. He stole a glance her way, her date had yet to arrive. Belle toyed with the straw in her gin tonic, poking the lime slices at the bottom of her glass. He stared a while longer, she really was beautiful.

The noise level in the pub diminished as clients left, returning home in time for supper. He ordered a burger, knowing he would have to remove the bacon and eat only half the chips. As he waited for his plate, he looked at Belle again, she was the only person left at the counter now. She was on the phone, a frown between her dark eyebrows.  
“Fuck,” she muttered after hanging up.  
She asked for the check and started gathering her things, it seemed her blind date was cancelled.

“I wouldn’t stand you up,” he said without thinking.

Belle smiled at him politely, but her slight eye roll didn’t escape his attention. Of course, a woman like her, she must be used to men chatting her up all the time with lame pick up lines and promises to be better than the last.

Yet, out of boredom or frustration perhaps, she asked: “Yeah? And what else wouldn’t you do?”  
“A good first impression.”  
She laughed, and his stomach did a little flip.  
“And would you offer me a drink?”

He motioned for the bartender to refill their drinks as Belle moved to the stool next to him. She gave him a good look this time, from head to toe, a mischievous smile curving her lips.  
“Alec, right? So, first date, you don’t stand me up, you offer me a drink, you don’t make a good first impression, but I give you a chance. What happens next?”  
He squirmed on his seat, feeling like he was being tested, and he very much wanted to ace that test. “Small talk, I suppose. Family, hobbies...”  
“The weather.”  
“Work.  
“Urgh.”  
“I’m a detective in the police.”  
“I’m a night time legal secretary,” Belle said in one breath.  
“Oh, my sister-in-law is a legal secretary too, what firm do you work for?”  
“You know what? I hate first dates and small talk. We should skip right to the second date.”  
He liked her then. Sometimes it’s that simple. He had forgotten it could be.

Belle turned on her seat to cross her legs, and he did the same.  
“So, you call me back—” she began.  
“I call you back? We just had a terrible first date.”  
“Yeah, but I’m cute.” She tucked her chin in her shoulder with a coy smile.  
She had a point. “And you agree to go out again?”  
“Well, maybe I think you’re a bit cute too.”

He bit his cheek to hold back a grin. Belle looked at him over her glass as she took a sip from her drink.

“All right, second date: cinema and restaurant?” he suggested.  
“What kind of movie do you take me to?”  
“Romcom?”  
“I don’t really like that, but I wouldn’t tell you so.”  
“Course not. And I didn’t make any reservation for supper, so we just walk around, looking for a restaurant.”  
“Neither of us wants to make a decision.”  
“We just watched a bad film, we’re hungry, we’re getting irritated…”

At that moment, the waiter brought his burger. Belle stole a chip from his plate.  
“Already getting more comfortable with me, I see.”  
She shrugged and took a second chip. “Just when we start thinking the second date will be a disaster too, we admit we both hated the movie.”  
“We laugh.”  
“You touch my hand, sparks fly, and I invite you back to my place.”  
“You laugh again when you see me naked.”  
“Well, I was only inviting you over for a drink, why did you have to go and undress for?”  
His cheeks heated up, realizing his mistake. He mumbled some excuse, and Belle giggled.  
“I’m just taking the piss, of course I invited you over for sex.” 

She looked him up and down, as though imagining what he looked like under his suit. Unsure where this conversation was headed, he took a big bite out of his burger. 

“Do you call me back after?” Belle asked.  
He nodded, mouth still full.  
“Of course you do,” she continued, “I’m way out of your league and I shagged you.”  
“And because I like you, you’re funny.”

She smiled and swiped her long hair over her shoulder, sending a whiff of floral shampoo his way. She leaned forward. “When does it stop being awkward? when do you start getting comfortable with me and being yourself?”

There had been two girls before Tess and that was the extent of his dating career which made answering this question a bit tricky. He used to be much more opened with other people. But now he wondered how much he should reveal.

“You mean when you find out I work too much and I’m grumpy all the time? Fourth, fifth date? I probably had to cancel plans a few times already because of work. Maybe on the sixth you find out what happened to me these past few years.”  
Belle tilted her head, eyes searching his face for a hint. He chuckled in a self-deprecating way and drank the last of his cider.  
“I have the same problem with work,” she confessed. “It takes over my life sometimes… and ruins my relationships.”  
He quirked a suspicious eyebrow; Legal secretary didn’t seem like that kind of job.  
Belle bit her red nails, the confidence she had displayed so far vanished. “I guess, that’s when I tell you I’m really an escort.”  
His stomach dropped. “What?”  
“I know, I should’ve said before, but I didn’t think it would go this far, that I’d like you so much.”  
“Hold on, stop with the game. Is that what you think is happening? Are you looking for a client?”  
“No.”  
“Your blind date…?”  
“A client.”

At a loss for words, he ate the last of his chips, the ones he wasn’t supposed to eat according to his physician. He kept his eyes on the plate.

Belle took in a deep, shaky breath. “How… how would you react to that.” Again with the conditional form.  
“Dunno,” he said. “The job’s one thing, it’s the lies I can’t stomach… I suppose that’s when I would tell you about my ex-wife cheating on me.”  
“I had someone cheat on me too.”  
“Not after fourteen years of marriage and a daughter.”  
“No, but just because I’m an escort doesn’t mean fidelity is not important to me.”  
He snorted at that and immediately regretted it.  
“So that’s it, then. It’s over, we go our separate ways?” Belle asked.  
He nodded slowly.  
“Fine.” She picked up her clutch and got off her seat. 

He’d known her all of thirty minutes, yet he felt a pinch in his heart. He had hurt her; How many times had that happened to her already? It could not be easy for her to reveal the truth. Unlike in their made-up relationship, she was honest from the start.  
“What if…” he began.  
“Yeah?”  
“What if we broke up, but we met again?”  
Belle frowned. “How d’you mean?”  
“Maybe we run into each other, a month later, by chance, on the street or in this bar…”  
“Say we do, nothing’s changed.”  
“Maybe I’ve had some time to think, we talk about it. You steal some of my chips, we get nostalgic.”  
She bit back a smile at that and nudged him with her shoulder. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”  
“Like that time we sat through a bloody awful film because you wouldn’t say you don’t like romcoms?”  
She laughed, not holding back this time. He put his arm over the back of his seat in a way that made his fingers brush against her arm. She noticed.  
“Then I would say: ‘I miss you, Alec’.” And there was such vulnerability on her face, in her big brown eyes, that he could almost believe this had all happened.  
Oh, to be missed by a woman, by anyone really.

Belle sat back on her seat. “Do you think we could start again? My real name’s Hannah.”

She extended her hand, and he shook it. The contact sent a shiver up his arm to his heart. He didn’t let go of her hand. Instead, he held it tighter, stroked her knuckles with his thumb. If this simple touch sent his heart racing, what would touching more of her do to him? He tore his gaze away from their joined hands and met her eyes. Hannah wet her lips and glanced down at his mouth which had gone dry. His free hand covered her knee, and she leaned forward, just a bit. She was so close now, he forgot everything around them.  
“What happens next?” he asked. “Do we go our separate ways again, or…”  
“How about you kiss me? For old times’ sake.”  
His palms grew sweaty against her skin. Before he had a chance to overthink this, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. It had been so long since he had kissed someone, even before his divorce, this was not an automatic kiss, not a reflex, but contact born out of desire. When she moved her lips, he moved his too, slightly rusty at first, but growing bold as heat coiled in his stomach. His hand slipped higher up her leg, and Hannah raked her fingers through his hair. He tasted her with a shy tongue, lime and lipstick. When she broke the kiss, he was panting.

He had never done this, hooking up with a woman met in a bar. Let’s call a spade a spade, that’s what this was, despite the hypothetical backstory they had created for themselves. The kind of nervousness he had not felt in ages coursed through his veins. And he liked it, the thrill of it. In the cab, he kissed her neck. Hannah did not push him away. She tilted her head, offering more skin, and she laughed an intoxicating laugh. 

“You’re not too drunk, are you?” he asked, suddenly concerned.  
“Just a bit tipsy. I know what I’m doing. What about you?”  
“No, not drunk, just… don’t feel like you have to do this.”  
Hannah cupped his cheek. “You’re sweet.”  
There was a condescending note to her voice that made him huff. With a hand hooked under her knee, he pulled her closer. Her gaze darkened as her lips parted. Fuck, he wanted her. He became acutely aware of her hand on his thigh, warm and heavy and so close to his crotch. He shifted in the seat. Hannah nuzzled his neck with a soft chuckle.  
“We’re almost there.”

It was dark inside her house, safe for fairy lights across the fireplace mantel. Holding his gaze, she took a few steps back and unzipped her dress. It dropped smoothly at her feet. In this strange place, with this confident woman, he felt out of his depths. He remained rooted on the spot. 

“I want you,” she said in a sultry voice, and somehow that made the situation worse.  
He rubbed the back on his neck. “I, erm, it’s been some time, since…”  
“That’s all right.”  
“Bollocks.”  
“It’s been some time for me too.”  
He snorted.  
“It’s true. Tonight’s client, he was the first appointment I’ve had in months. I took a break because— anyway, I’m glad he didn’t show up.”

Hannah closed the distance between them and smoothed his tie between her fingers. She kept her gaze lowered.  
“I’m sorry,” he said for lack of a more appropriate phrase.  
She shrugged a shoulder. “We can watch a movie neither of us will like, if you prefer.”  
He shook his head and put his hands on her waist. He liked this, this moment exactly, the proximity, the darkness, her soft breath. She rested her head against his chest, and he kissed her hair. 

After a moment, he moved his hands, exploring the skin from hips to ribs. Shyly at first, until his thumbs skirted the edge of her bra. He thought he heard her moan, and she canted her hips, a slight shift in position, but enough that she surely felt his cock stir in his pants. She tilted her head back, hooded eyes questioning his intentions. Whether the future dates they had imagined would happen or this would end come morning, he had to have her. He could not let Tess’ betrayal plague him with insecurities. And so he kissed her, more confident, more measured than earlier. Hannah sank into him with something like surrender. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he held her firmly against him, deepening the kiss. Hannah fisted his shirt and pushed up on her toes. 

“Your bedroom?”

Taking his hand, Hannah guided him up the stairs. Her bedroom was white and immaculate, matching throw pillows arranged on the bed and abstract watercolours in muted pastels hanging above the headboard.  
“I don’t take clients here. In my house.”  
“So this is all you.” And he wanted to know all of her. Who was the blond boy in the picture frame? What books did she keep on her nightstand? What did she wear to bed and what did she look like in the morning? But it seemed they were doing things out of order today, so he would know her body before her mind.

Hannah turned on a small lamp beside the bed, and stood in its glow. He could not make out the expression on her face but every curve of her body was highlighted. As he tugged his tie loose, he crossed the space between them in long strides. She helped him get rid of his shirt, and he wished she still had her dress so he could take it off her. Next time, maybe, if he was so lucky. 

He savoured removing what was left of her clothes, unhooking her bra and sliding it down her arms. He replaced the cups with his mouth, peppering kisses across her chest before capturing a nipple between his teeth. But he wanted more. He kissed her ribs and stomach, licked the swell of her hipbones, he pressed her palm to his cheek, kissed her wrist where she’d laid a drop of perfume, and dragged his lips along her arm to suck on her pulse point. Hannah gasped, and tugged on his hair to bring his mouth back to hers. 

His hand ventured lower, dragging his fingers along the lacy edge of her knickers. He was teasing himself as much as her, like unwrapping a gift slowly to make the surprise last. And wasn’t she just that: a gift. A reward. A pat on the shoulder from life; he had done his penance, caught the bad guys, now he got to have her. Yet, he suspected she was not the kind of woman to let herself be someone’s reward. 

“Hannah…” he murmured in a hoarse voice.  
“Yeah?”  
He shook his head, could not remember what he wanted to say, could not find the words. He just wanted her eyes on him, a connection.  
“I’m so glad we broke up and met again,” she joked.  
“I think we would last longer the second time around.”  
“At least until you have to meet my family.”  
He chuckled and kissed her forehead. How did she do that, make him feel so light?  
She caressed his chest, fingers lingering at the scar above his heart. “I missed— there’s something missing...a part of me, of my life.”  
She frowned and he pressed her hands to his chest. She smiled in a way that made him want to make reckless promises, but he was not whole either. And so he kissed her, sharing his breath, and the moment was swept away by lust.

Hannah echoed his teasing, bringing her hands to the top of his trousers, dipping her thumbs under the waistband. When his hips bucked, she giggled. He swallowed the happy notes with a kiss. She slipped his belt out of the buckle, opened the first button and lowered the zip, tooth by tooth. He inhaled sharply when her warm palm slid through the opening. She caressed him over his pants. In a matter of seconds, he was fully hard, and dizzy with arousal. 

There was that coil in his lower abdomen that made him back her against the nearest piece of furniture, knocking the lamp off the nightstand.  
“Yesss,” she moaned.  
She reclined on the table as he kicked off his trousers. He made himself take a deep breath and dragged his hands up her legs to the apex of her thighs then paused. She bit her bottom lip, nodding at his unvoiced request. A gasp escaped her throat at that first intimate touch, and he marveled at her wetness coating his fingers.  
“Fuck.” She jerked her hips to meet his fingers with a whine.  
She hooked her legs over his hips, urged him closer, until she could reach his cock. She had somehow found a condom, she unrolled it down his length and guided him between her thighs.

Once connected, they stilled. Ragged breaths mingled between them as their eyes met. He rested his forehead on hers, and she reached for his hand, entwining their fingers. 

They started moving their hips at the same time, slowly at first, sweet torture. Before long, she was urging him on with her hand on his arse. Her nails left red crescents on his white skin, and she nipped his lower lip, sending him in a frenzy. The nightstand knocked against the wall, the bang barely covering their grunts as he thrust in her faster and harder. 

Hannah pushed him off to lie on the bed, and straddled him. She bucked her hips quickly, roughly, her eyes closed, lost in pleasure. In her own pleasure— and he thought surely she didn’t do that with clients. 

He tasted the beads of sweat between her breasts, licking his way to her mouth, kissing her sloppily. When he lied back down, she followed, resting her forehead on his chest. Her movements became frantic, her eyes still closed. He moved his thumb to increase her pleasure, hoping he would not lose it before she did. He bit down on her neck, and he felt her clench and shiver around him, moaning his name. He let go, groaning through his release.

Hannah sagged over his heaving chest. He stared at the ceiling in disbelief and suddenly started to laugh.  
“Are you alright?” she asked.  
“More than.”

He held her close for a moment, not ready to be separated from her, and she seemed content to stay there with him. His fingers drifted through her hair, and she hummed softly, short of purring.  
“You can stay the night if you want to,” she said.  
“I’d like that.”

They took turns in the shower. It was still too early to go to bed. He worried things would get awkward. It had already been established that they disliked small talk. What were they supposed to do? And then, what if he snored? Or worse, had a nightmare and woke up crying. 

“If we’d been dating for a while,” Hannah said, “you’d know that tonight my favourite show is on.”  
“You want to watch telly?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Okay.” Telly, he could do.  
“You can say so if you don’t like the show.”  
“I probably won’t say anything.”  
“Course not.”

She crossed her wrists behind his neck and kissed him. The spontaneity of it made his heart swell.

They went down to the living room and snuggled on the couch like the old couple they weren’t yet.


End file.
